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To head off regulators, Google makes certain words taboo

themarkup.org

41–50 of 319 posts

Re: To head off regulators, Google makes certain words taboo

#41

I feel like in this case, regulators should be able to re-substitute any of the "good" terms, with the "bad" terms when citing email evidence, since clearly, Google has now shown that phrases like "valuable to users" are synonyms in their parlance for "network effects".

Not exactly. The key idea of the training is that rank-and-file SWEs don't realize that words have legal meanings separate from their colloquial meanings, and they can cause undue trouble for the company and for themselves with poor word-choice. It's more about "Don't say the product is 'dominating the market' when you don't have any idea what your product's percent share is in the market or, for that matter, how 'ma…

Did you read the slide that says

> "Bad: the defensive rationale for this acquisition is clear: Get ahead of the competition and cut off their access to the target's product"

> "Good: The rationale for this acquisition is clear: Integrate the target with Google and improve our products for users"

It takes some pretty serious mental gymnastics to believe someone writing a document explaining why Google should perform an acquisition, would not know why Google should perform an acquisition.

Re: To head off regulators, Google makes certain words taboo

#42

Reminds me of Peter Thiel's observation that monopolies lie.[1] Also, IANAL but I can't imagine a memo/training that says not to use certain words because of "regulatory issues" is not itself evidence that Google knows of its own monopolistic status. [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/peter-thiel-competition-is-for-...

Surprisingly, it's not. It's evidence that Google knows some words are open to misinterpretation, so engineers are encouraged to use more accurate words and not stray into words with colloquial meanings differing from their legal meanings (because subpoenas lack context). If I say I'm "killing it" this week, I'm not committing homicide.

Everything is evidence of something. It’s just up to the jury to decide what that something is.

Re: To head off regulators, Google makes certain words taboo

#44
post #8

Google (okay, Alphabet) is the only big tech company that I can imagine would ultimately _benefit_ from an antitrust breakup. Google keeps killing low-to-medium profitable smaller product lines and tools because it can't spin them off successfully. Google can't spin off tools successfully because their internal codebases are deeply reliant on assumptions about Google's infrastructure and Google internal libraries, et…

And people wonder why kubernetes/Anthos is a thing...

Re: To head off regulators, Google makes certain words taboo

#45
post #8

Google (okay, Alphabet) is the only big tech company that I can imagine would ultimately _benefit_ from an antitrust breakup. Google keeps killing low-to-medium profitable smaller product lines and tools because it can't spin them off successfully. Google can't spin off tools successfully because their internal codebases are deeply reliant on assumptions about Google's infrastructure and Google internal libraries, et…

> Splitting Google up, forcing this infrastructure to become open, etc would be much healthier than perpetually killing small products to protect Google's secret sauce.

I totally agree! But this assumes that what Google wants to do is healthy. What Google actually does is try to make more profit. A majority of choices made are guided by this one law: to accumulate as much capital as possible (after all, we live in a capitalist system).

This law is similar to other physical laws that govern our physical system e.g. "current likes to flow in the path of least resistance."

In a capitalist system, the mode of production is fueled by profit. Companies that aren't profitable or can't compete with larger companies cease to exist or get eaten up by larger corps. In turn, the wealth of these smaller companies get sucked into the larger companies, and they keep subsuming more and more. It's the natural tendency of the system. It's not like these companies really have a choice in the matter.. they're just operating within the confines and laws of the system.

In order to slow this tendency, an outside force must act on the system.

Re: To head off regulators, Google makes certain words taboo

#46
post #8

Google (okay, Alphabet) is the only big tech company that I can imagine would ultimately _benefit_ from an antitrust breakup. Google keeps killing low-to-medium profitable smaller product lines and tools because it can't spin them off successfully. Google can't spin off tools successfully because their internal codebases are deeply reliant on assumptions about Google's infrastructure and Google internal libraries, et…

> Splitting Google up, forcing this infrastructure to become open, etc would be much healthier than perpetually killing small products to protect Google's secret sauce.

There are probably many Googlers here who have sacrificed huge portions of their life and time getting the Google infrastructure to work. Forcing engineers to make changes to their creation is insane.

Personally, I’d rather not build anything than have someone force me to break up what I’ve built because I was too successful at building it.

I think we should all agree to just keep politics out of engineering. We build things because we like to, we should assume the same for Google engineers.

Re: To head off regulators, Google makes certain words taboo

#47
To throw off the feds, the mob starts using code words... like the feds don’t know.

People will talk about the subject but use different words is all.

Isn’t this as transparent as mafiosi saying things like “when you get the big fish in the lights send the fish to the butcher?“ Who would they be fooling?

Re: To head off regulators, Google makes certain words taboo

#48
post #32

I don't work at Google but I had to take similar training too, where using words/phrases like 'dominant', 'market share', 'leading in a market' etc were discouraged. Specifically because the 'market' can be interpreted in a zillion different ways, especially for tech companies. Don't think this kind of thing is new, rare or shocking. Peter Thiel in Zero to One also gives examples of how a company can be considered a…

Yep. This is hardly new. I have been at Google since the mid 2000s and this stuff has been around at least since then. There was also a similar training when I was at Microsoft.

Btw, in the trainings I've taken, it's not just about avoiding specific words, but avoiding the thoughts behind those words. Our goal shouldn't be to "dominate the competition/market." The goal should be creating compelling experiences and products for our customers. Staying focused on the latter goal is long term better business and better global citizenship.

I think saying that Google does this to "head off regulators" is not really fair. That's like saying "asdfasgasdgasdg pays their taxes to head off the IRS." I guess? In some sense we all follow the law partly in order to avoid the consequences of not doing so but it seems pejorative to say it this way. It makes it sound like there are a lot of other people who are paying their taxes out of the goodness of their hearts, but I'm the bad person who is only doing so to avoid legal consequences.

Re: To head off regulators, Google makes certain words taboo

#50
post #32

I don't work at Google but I had to take similar training too, where using words/phrases like 'dominant', 'market share', 'leading in a market' etc were discouraged. Specifically because the 'market' can be interpreted in a zillion different ways, especially for tech companies. Don't think this kind of thing is new, rare or shocking. Peter Thiel in Zero to One also gives examples of how a company can be considered a…

> e.g. Google is a monopoly if you consider online advertising as the market, but if you stretch the market to all advertising (including print, radio, TV and billboards), Google might not be considered one.

Only a very narrow definition of online advertising would leave Google as a monopoly. Both Amazon and Facebook make a lot of money charging companies to promote products online.

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